


Nightmare Fuel

by sunflowerprince



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Trauma, in which nobody has a good time but at least they're having a terrible time together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24890464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerprince/pseuds/sunflowerprince
Summary: Jon hasn't had a statement in over a week, and is feeling wretched. Martin reveals that he has his own hunger linked to the Lonely.They must choose between thriving off fear or unraveling themselves.At the end of the day, what is the line between man and monster?
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 10
Kudos: 53





	Nightmare Fuel

**Author's Note:**

> Hi hello fam! I was tickled by the phrase "nightmare fuel" and instead of writing a nice wholesome story about the pun, concocted this foul adventure because we can have nice things but this isn't one of them. There is redeeming fluff mixed in, though.

Jon was laid up on the couch, where he had been for a couple hours now, curled in on himself knees to chest. He was listlessly not-really watching _Ancient Aliens_.  
He’d been slowing down over the last several days, and he’d finally run out of momentum. He had a drawn look on his face, which Martin knew painfully well. He was feeling it deeply, too. 

“You need to eat, Jon. Real food. Not that conspiracy theory junk food, and you know it.”

Jon let out a feeble, disgruntled noise.

“It’s not safe to go to the Institute right now and you’re withering away before my eyes. I know it’s not—ideal—and I’ve given you hell for it in the past, but I understand better, now. I’m hungry, too.” Martin grimaced. It was the first time he had said it aloud, fully admitted it to himself since Jon had dragged him out of the Lonely. Even if it was unintentional, he had devoted himself too thoroughly to avoid the existential _need_ , a hunger he couldn’t disentangle himself from. 

Jon’s gaze snapped to Martin with a glassy focus.

“Oh, Martin.” He murmured. “I had hoped—when we left—your ties were severed.”

“I thought they did, at first. But being with you now, being steeped in—togetherness—it doesn’t make up for half a year of isolation, let alone, a—god this is pathetic—a majority isolated life.” 

Jon roused himself enough to make a little grabby, beckoning motion in Martin’s direction. “When did it start?”

“Oh, about a week after we got back. I’d been feeding it so well I didn’t even fully realize I’d been feeding it at all, I was just already so lonely. Only when I forced myself to stop holding myself apart from everyone, I slowly felt it creeping in like, like a pit in the stomach of my—psyche or something.” Martin obliged, lowering himself to the couch, putting his socked feet on top of Jon’s bare, frigid ones. “And I’m sorry for judging you before. I don’t know how you held out so long. It—God, Jon, it _gnaws_.”

Jon made a sympathetic noise, running a hand softly through Martin’s hair. “I had thought you were just looking more exhausted because the nightmares got worse.”

Martin started to shake his head, then nodded shortly. “Well, they have, and that has helped about as much as you’d think.”

“How do you—do you even know how to feed the Lonely?” Jon asked. “I mean, Peter Lukas said he, vanished people, but that was so very vague. He never said where they went.” 

_Or if they came back_. Martin noted the unsaid. “I know just as you know, Jon. Innately. And each second I push it down, try to think it away, it goes grumbling, whispering that I won’t truly know peace until I sate it. Do you know how many granola bars I’ve stashed round the place? I’ve gone through boxes, hoping that if my body was full enough—” He lapsed into distressed silence. Here he was, supposed to be helping Jon, and all he could talk about was his problems.

“Martin. I wish you’d told me. You don’t have to deal with it alone.”

“I know.” He said quietly. “But it’s—it’s just _me_ you know? Just Martin.” He chuckled humorlessly. “I care about everyone’s problems but I just can’t find it within me to feel like my own matter at the end of the day. I don’t have a good answer for it. I ask myself why, I’m a person, right? People matter. But my brain just says _because_ and I can’t help but agree.”

Jon rested a hand on his thigh, squeezing weakly. “I’m here to tell you how much you matter how many times you need until you can believe it for yourself, and then I’ll tell you some more.”

“Thanks.” Martin murmured, cheeks heating. 

Jon huffed. “So what are we to do? I can’t get statements. I don’t want to—to _stalk_ people in the night. And you need to eat, too.”

“Well. You could—have me, I suppose. My statement. To hold you over until Basira can thieve you a supply.” He rushed to clarify. But no matter how he framed the concept in his mind, it felt…creepy crawly.

Jon’s lips turned down in a twist. “I appreciate the offer but I endeavor to never Know you in any way you don’t share with me the good old fashioned way. And pulling your trauma—after extremely fresh trauma at that—sounds like a morbidly terrible foundation for a relationship.”

Conflicting feelings jolted through Martin’s chest. Relief—the very idea of being Known, in his heart of hearts that still belonged to the Forsaken, terrified him. Gratitude—that Jon was the first to set that boundary, because it had been ping ponging along in his mind for a long time. And interest—because he did not miss the spark in Jon’s eye when he said “extremely fresh trauma.” Rather than feel unnerved, he felt fascinated. 

“I suppose you could at least feed off of me.” Jon offered with a shrug. “I’ve been quite lonely since my grandmother passed. I didn’t really realize how deeply until Sasha and—Tim—” His voice broke off, strangled. 

Martin’s heart lurched for this beautiful, burdened man. This sharp, kind man who miracle of miracles loved—such a strange, aching word—him back. And he felt a rush of shame, because the idea of that rich loneliness appealed to him, perversely. Poor Jon—having gone so long on his own, battling his abomination of a craving, being pressured on all sides. 

“No, I can’t do that.” Martin sighed. “But we can’t just run around and eat peoples’ terror like Bogeymen. If we won’t do it to people we know and love, it makes it extra wrong, somehow, to do it to strangers.”

Jon gave him a despairing look. “I know, I know. But at least—you don’t have to do much, right? Can you just, I don’t know, find a very lonely person and just kind of—bask—in their loneliness?”

“I’m not an eldritch _cat_ , Jon.” Martin said dryly. No, it was much worse than that. “I have to make them face it, _feel it_ down to their bones in a way they’ve never felt before. Make the numb hum of it unbearable, a fever pitch. And I have very creative, horrible ways to do it.”

“Oh.” 

“Yeah, oh.” Martin huffed. “I don’t want to become like one of them, Jon. Like Michael Crew. Prentiss.”

“Jude Perry.” Jon agreed solemnly, his burnt hand twitching reflexively. 

“Exactly. Just running about, peachy keen, siphoning off peoples’ worst experiences, feeding them to their patrons, feeling no guilt, no inhibition—”

“Feeling _joy_.” Jon said softly, looking at the hardwood floor.

“Oh, Jon. It’s not your fault. I know you wouldn’t choose it if it was really a choice at all.”

“I’m afraid that doesn’t matter anymore.”

They sat in uncomfortable silence, chagrined by their new reality, wanting to comfort the other and incapable of comforting themselves.

“Well. Not eating is not an option unless we want to unravel painfully or are driven to our knees by vengeful abominations. In which case, even more people would suffer with our lack of control. How about we go together?” Martin actually hated the idea, wanted to pluck it from his brain and burn it in a fire. He had no desire to exhibit his lowest moments to Jon more than he already had. He wanted the solace of solitude, the unjudging blindness of being alone. 

But he wanted Jon and him to hold on to their humanity more.

“Together?” Jon scoffed, but not unkindly. He sobered quickly. “I don’t want you to see me like that.”

“Oh, believe me, I know. But we could be—accountability partners. There’s no getting around that we’ll have to—hurt people—but we can keep each other from straying further than necessary.”

Martin loved watching thoughts cycle through Jon—his face was so loud with expression. And the furrow in his brow was hall of fame, perfectly kissable. 

“Alright.” He said finally, unhappily. “I’d rather be—vulnerable—with you than hurt someone irreparably.”

Martin smirked at the way Jon choked on the word “vulnerable.” Made it sound like a curse word. He stood up, offered his hand to his beloved curmudgeon. “Off we go, then. If it’s too late in the night I’ll feel like a real spook.”

Jon allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, having to steady himself with a hand on Martin’s shoulder as he swayed. Martin felt his heart clinch. He hated seeing Jon so weak, so narrow with hunger.

“Look at us.” He said, elbowing Jon on the way out the door, reawakening his invulnerable optimism. “Our first real dinner date.”

Jon, of course, insisted that Martin be taken care of first, not wavering under Martin’s most ardent mother hen-ing. 

“Jon, you’ve been hungry longer than I’ve been, and you use more power than I do.”

“Martin, for the hundredth time, I do not care. Does this face look like it cares? Did I leave it in care mode? I didn’t mean to. There. Is it off now?”

“You’re ruder when you’re hungry.” 

Jon flipped him off.

Martin chuckled, grabbing hold of his hand and interlacing their fingers.

“Alright, then.” He sighed, getting to task. “I don’t know what it’s like for you, but I hear them calling to me. Well, not the people. Their isolation. Their despair. Like a greyhound of strife.”

“Your metaphors are really improving, dearheart.” Jon said sincerely, squeezing his hand lightly.

“Thanks.” Martin beamed. He was quite proud of himself. Funny how going through a literal hellscape of a life helped you find your voice. 

“That’s pretty much how it works for me, too. You just lead and I’ll follow.” Jon swung their linked hands.

Martin closed his eyes. He’d been fighting the urge for so long, flinching away from it, averting his gaze, that when he opened the floodgate, he staggered. Jon pressed a staying hand against his shoulder. His breathing got a little heavy as he reached out, and god, it was everywhere. The aching spaces between fingers that had never held another hand, the cold side of a bed, the echo of an empty theatre, the table for one, the knees pressed into the soil beside graves, the patient with no one in the waiting room, the buzz of the telly, the only voices in the house—

Martin sucked in a breath.

It was _beautiful._

“Martin?” Jon asked tentatively, looking at him with unease. It didn’t bother Martin. The parts of him that would have minded were buried deep in his chest, his thoughts narrowed to his and his alone, honed to the scars of his own loneliness and the echoes of it in the streets, in the bent backs of passerby.

There was a light at the edge of his vision that stood out bleaker than all the rest. 

“There.” He murmured, turning on his heel.

“Martin!” Jon struggled to keep up with him. Usually he would slow to his pace, make a joke about needing to get Jon a pair of rollerblades. But he was _hungry_.  
He pulled up short only when his prey was yards away, watching, calculating.

He was not much older than Martin himself, with his hair tied up in a bandana, scuffed shoes, an invisible weight on his shoulders as he dragged his cello case and himself around the block. The sound of labored breathing reminded Martin he was not alone. He tsked in discontent.

“There are so many ways to be alone, Jon.” He began, eyes narrowed in concentration. “Alone in a crowd, eyes sliding off you, not really seeing you. Just part of the scenery. Do you think that would make him most afraid? Making him as invisible as he feels. Hmm. Or I could make everyone invisible to _him_. Let him wander through the city like the last man alive.” He tilted his head. “But, no. His fiancé just left him for his best mate. His parents divorced last year.” He tilted his head further. “And I’m no prophet, but his dog is sick and I fear it’s not long for this world.”

“Martin…” 

Martin stood straight. He knew exactly what to do. He said it aloud for Jon’s benefit. “I’ll make them disappear one by one by one, like everyone in his life. A little heavy-handed, true, but I just love the—the _poetry_ of it.”

He raised his hands, channeling the vacuum of silence the Lonely had grown in him. Fog danced around his fingertips, chilled him to the bone. He licked his lips and tasted salt. Slowly, it unfurled down the road, enveloping the street in a low-hanging smog of despair. He felt the man’s heart rate kick up, could feel his panic set in as people faded from his vision. The rush of terror was invigorating, Martin’s hands glitching in and out of view as the soft fear wrapped around him like blanket. 

“Martin I think that’s enough.” 

“I could go so much further.” He could feed the man directly to the Lonely, a one-way ticket through a door that would never exist again. He felt a shiver of approval from his patron. “I could send him to the house of phantoms, where all you are is an echo of yourself, shambling amidst the fog and the dark, wondering how you strayed so far away from any other sign of life—only to catch sight of another person cutting through the frigid air, only to still choose to turn away from them.”

“ _Martin_.” 

Strong arms gripped his shoulders, turned him away from the street. He met Jon’s gaze and the smaller man gasped lightly, only to square his jaw determinedly.

“This isn’t you anymore, Martin. You wouldn’t want to send that man back to that wasteland you were trapped in. You wouldn’t want to damn him to fading out of existence. You wouldn’t want him to go through what you went through.” Jon reached up to take Martin’s chin firmly in his hand. “Look at me Martin. See me.”

Martin’s brow furrowed. He scanned Jon’s open, sober expression, the prematurely greying hair at his temple, that he loved and Jon would rather not think about. The crow’s feet that were long in disuse, finally crinkling with laughter again when they lay together. The scars from the little silver worms burrowing in his flesh when Jane Prentiss assaulted the Archives—

Jane Prentiss.

He remembered her, lurking outside his apartment, eager to riddle him with holes, to make him the same kind of creature. He remembered huddling in on himself, back to the wall, barely sleeping, double then triple checking all the nooks and crevices in his apartment, watching cardboard from ready meals pile up until there were no more to add to the tower, until his hunger gnawed at his stomach like so many little worms.

The chill thawed from him, fog retreating with a silent hiss as the Forsaken was banished back to below the surface of his mind. He collapsed into Jon’s arms, Jon ready to bear his weight, rubbing circles into his back as he cried.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry.” That was all he could say, the horror at his actions, his _feelings_ , washing over him in endless waves. He had never been so viscerally ashamed.

“It’s okay, Martin, you’re okay.” Jon murmured sweet nothings to him, carding a hand through his curls, like he was worthy of touch, worthy of softness, worthy of _love_. 

He choked on a sob. “I hurt that man, Jon. I hurt him so much and I feel so full and I _hate_ it. But I don’t hate it really though, I hate myself for how _good_ it feels.”

“I know, dearheart, I know.” Jon shh’d at him, humming a little.

Martin could barely stand to stay there in his arms. He wanted to pick a direction and run until his legs gave out, wanted to fall and scrape and bleed and beg the Lonely to take him back.

His patron was more than agreeable.

Jon coaxed his head within reach, pressing delicate kisses onto his eyelids. 

“I would have done it, if you weren’t here, Jon. I would have sent him to that godforsaken place.”

“Yes.” Jon agreed, his tone uncolored by judgment, just honesty. “But I am here and you didn’t. I think it would be healthy to take the victory.”

“This is terrible, Jon. I thought it was hard for you, just to feel it, but to feed it? To convince yourself to stop taking and taking and taking? How did you do it? How did you not lose yourself?”

“I did lose myself, Martin.” Jon said gently. “The old me, the wholly human me, would never have done anything like this. I hurt people. Ripped their traumas from their lips and feasted on them. And I’ll do it again, because that is my nature now. But I will keep using paper statements, voluntary statements, as much as I can. And between myself and you, I have hope we’ll keep me from straying too far into monstrosity. Because there are so many human things I want to do with you.”

Martin nodded jerkily. If Jon saw something worth salvaging in him, and was counting on him to help Jon salvage himself—he could do it. He could push past the shame and pain and be there for him. 

“Alright.” He said in a harsh exhale. “On to you, I suppose.”

Jon slid his fingers between Martin’s and tugged him along, back in the direction they came from. He found a victim—Martin cringed at the way he’d thought of his as prey—in short order. Jon was, of course, old hat to it by now and a far deal more put together than Martin himself had been. 

Still, it felt horrid to watch him approach the table on the patio, prop himself up against the pillar and begin. The woman’s face was drawn in confusion at first, which gave way to apprehension and then panic.

“Statement of Isobel Ivery, regarding the haunting of her childhood home and the subsequent disappearance of her younger brother Timothy Ivery. Statement taken directly from subject. Statement begins.”

It was hard to listen to, the words being wrenched from the woman’s mouth, the tears running silently down her cheeks as she recounted the most traumatic event in her life. What was almost worse was the eager, intent way that Jon leaned in, nodding intermittently. A smile played at the edges of his lips. Is that how he had looked? He knew he must have. Lapping it all up and pushing for more.

Martin tried his best not to hear, but felt he owed it to Isobel to witness her and not turn away from the forcible reopening of a wound that had already healed wrong. From the snippets he could hear, he would lay money on her brother being taken by the Buried or the Flesh. He bit his lip against the sounds of her whimpers in between words. 

Her whole body was shaking. 

“I don’t think that’s all there is to the story, is it, Isobel?”

“Please.” She begged. “No.”

“ _Tell me_.”

When it was all unraveled—the story and the woman both—Jon still didn’t step away.

“Well, well. Your life has positively been rife with nasty things, hasn’t it? There’s another story in there. I can _feel_ —oh. What came for Timothy. It came for you.”

Martin walked forward in jerky steps, tugging Jon’s arm.

“That’s enough, Jon. You don’t need any more.”

“I _want_ all of it. I need to Know all of it.” Jon said, tugging his arm out of Martin’s grip. 

The brief struggle was enough for the woman to compose herself and make a break for it—Martin clamped his hands around Jon’s shoulders, holding him back. As soon as the woman was out of sight, the smaller man whirled on him, seething. Martin took a whole step back, shocked at the force of the fury in his eyes. 

“The story wasn’t finished!”

“You got one story, Jon. You would have broken her with two.”

“You useless—” Jon cut himself off. “Did it feel good?”

“What?”

“To watch? _Tell me_ Martin did it—”

Martin clapped a hand over Jon’s mouth.

“Oh, _fuck off_ with that, Jon. You’re throwing a tantrum.” 

His partner’s face did not soften. 

Martin sighed. He smoothed the grey locks back from Jon’s face.

“You ridiculous man.” He leaned his forehead against Jon’s, and just stood there, holding him. He was rigid in his arms. Martin just held on tighter.  
Slowly, slowly, Jon wilted in his arms, burying his face in Martin’s chest.

“I’m so sorry.” He said quietly.

“Yes, I’m sure.” 

“I haven’t—I haven’t had anyone around for that before. I didn’t realize how—cold—I get.” He shook his head, burrowing deeper into Martin’s embrace. “And I—I tried to compel you, the one thing, the one thing I said I’d never do, dammit.” He let out a shuddering breath.

“I mean. At least you didn’t try to throw her into a hellscape? All she’ll get is horrible nightmares of you in—” Martin glanced down. “A remarkably cute jumper.”

Jon huffed a laugh into Martin’s chest before peeking up blearily.

“Why are you being so…lovely…about this?”

“Jon. I know this might come as a surprise to you, so brace yourself. But I’m well accustomed to you being an absolute brat.” Martin shook his head. Jon was a fool if he thought he would abandon him so easily. “You’re human, love. It’s a good sign if you consider what happened to be terrible.” 

Jon nodded, once, sharply. Martin could tell guilt was roiling around in the pit of his stomach, but so it was with his own, and they both had plenty of reasons to be ghastly and introspective with the day’s events.

“You know what would make this better?”

“What?” Jon asked skeptically.

“Tea. Let’s go home.”

The corner of Jon’s mouth kicked up in a small smile. 

They walked down the street, hand in hand, with new color in their cheeks. 

It was a messy business, staying human. But they weren’t fighting alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Be well be safe! <3


End file.
